


And I'd Give Up Forever To Touch You

by frenchpirate (Whiskey_n_speed)



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, M/M, Summer of Like, Warped Tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskey_n_speed/pseuds/frenchpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete thinks back to Warped Tour 2005 and the mistakes he made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I'd Give Up Forever To Touch You

The sheets were cold against his skin, his vision blurry and his thoughts feeling like they were a solid object weighing down on his chest. His breaths were jagged and uneven, and it was like his ribcage was shrinking by the minute and his mind expanding equally and he could implode any moment now. He was sort of drunk. 

It was snowing outside, but he had barely noticed on his hasty walk around the block with his dog, who had lately seemed to become his only link between his own brain and the outside world. He didn’t remember the last time he had gone grocery shopping, hell, he barely remembered the last time he’d eaten a proper meal, or done anything else that was actually expected of him as a human being except pouring another glass of gin. 

He was miserable. He was worse than miserable, he was downright shattered to pieces and he wasn’t doing anything about it, he was just sitting here with the comforter draped around him, cramming him in and reminding him of tight spaces and bodyheat in the already humid air and sweet nothings that were secretly a lot more than just nothings exchanged in whispering voices.

_“I like autumn better” Mikey whispered as they were cuddled up together in Mikeys tiny bunk, his face so close to Petes that their noses was almost touching, arm slouched around Pete and his elbow digging into Petes shoulder and Pete not minding the discomfort one single bit. “It’s not so warm all the time, and there’s no bugs”  
_

_“I like summer a lot” Pete whispered back, and it wasn’t completely a lie. He liked this summer, but didn’t care too much about any past summer in his life, because none of them mattered compared to this one. This summer was bunk beds and stage diving and waterparks and sleepovers in busses so familiar they almost felt like his own._

_This summer was stealing kisses behind lampposts at night and unsteady fingers in the back of cabs in smalls cities and watching the sunset and completely forgetting how beautiful a south-western sunset actually was because there was someone next to him that was a thousand times more fascinating than anything the sun could ever provide. This summer was holding hands in the mornings underneath a breakfast table, drinking coffee and grinning slyly if anyone dared to ask about it, and this summer was endless discussions about Doom Patrol and cereal and Britpop and sex and death and space and love. This summer was Mikey Way and Pete liked this summer better than any season he had lived through yet.  
_

_“You just like not wearing clothes” Mikey said with a smile as Pete drew little shapes with his fingers on the small of Mikeys back, feeling how clearly his spine stood out against his fingertips and briefly being reminded how every part of Mikey was possibly his favorite part.  
_

_“I like you” Pete confessed, quietly, and Mikey quickly pecked him on the lips, giggling his low significant giggle that made Petes chest go all tight and tingly. Okay, maybe Mikeys giggle was a little more of his favorite part than any of the others.  
_

_“I like you too”_

 

He had thought about picking up the phone a lot the past few weeks. Months, maybe. But that was the issue; he hadn’t done anything besides think about it. And everyone knew how unreliable and messed up Petes thoughts were, and he was simultaneously thinking way too much about everything else too, so in the end he just found Mikeys name that he never deleted from his contacts in the years that had gone by, and stared at it for a while. 

It would be weird, calling after all this time and he had no idea what he would actually say if Mikey even picked up the phone. He had no idea what Mikey would say either, and that was maybe even the saddest part of it all. 

But as it seemed like a worse and worse idea to him, it was also an idea that kept coming back to him, lingering around in his head until it was like a song stuck there, words incapable of leaving him alone, painfully dragging him back to times he thought he’d moved on from but couldn’t quite convince himself was actually over. Mikey Way was stuck in his head, but better and more intense than any song he’d ever written about him. Mikey was more than all of those songs. He was like an entire book that Pete had only gotten to explore a few chapters of, and Pete had wanted to read the whole book, he had wanted that from some of the first times he talked to Mikey.

And he still wanted to, and while there was a whole choir of voices in his head telling him that it was too late and he fucked up and chickened out and could’ve had it all but didn’t take it while the chance was there, there was a tiny little voice behind all the others that told him that it would never be the same, but when it came to Mikey it would never be too late either. If he listened closely it sounded a little like Mikeys voice.

_A little out of breath, with rosy cheeks and fingers entwined, they’d reached the top of the hill and found themselves at the foot of a huge elm tree, and Mikey eyed it skeptically while Pete felt light and airy in pure ecstasy.  
_

_“There’s no way we can get all the way up there. Look how little branches there is” Mikey stated and Pete walked closer to the tree, impatiently tugging at Mikeys hand to make him follow.  
_

_“Of course we can”  
_

_“Maybe you can. You’re small” Mikey argued but he didn’t look all that reluctant. Pete let go of his hand to enthusiastically grab the first branches he could reach, and he actually made it up a few feet before he fell down and landed on his back. Mikey snorted behind him.  
_

_“Hey! I could’ve died there” Pete pouted and turned around to look at Mikey who was covering his mouth with his hands and laughing into them.  
_

_“You almost die like two times a week” he giggled and Pete shrugged. He was kind of right, Pete wasn’t exactly known for thinking twice about his sudden impulses.  
_

_He got up and tried again, and this time it only took him a couple of minutes before he was safely settled on one of the top branches, feet dangling in the air and grinning widely down at Mikey, who was still standing on the ground. “Well, aren’t you gonna try at least?” he yelled down and a after another while, where Pete had to slide himself down again and put his arm around Mikeys waist to help him keep his balance, Mikey was settled next to him. Their bodies were close side to side, and they were pretty hidden behind the crown of the tree.  
_

_“You know, I actually almost died once” Pete said all of sudden, and though Mikey didn’t say anything at first, his grip around Petes fingers got a little tighter and Pete knew that it was Mikeys wordless way of saying that he understood.  
_

_“Like, for real?” he asked in the end, and his voice was slow and pausing in between every word and Pete knew he got it even without asking, but did it anyway.  
_

_“Uh huh. I woke up soaked in a hospital bed, and I was scared shitless” Pete nodded and Mikey leaned his head on his shoulder.  
_

_“I’m glad you didn’t die”  
_

_“The leaves are dying” Pete then said and gestured towards the leaves in front of them, that was turning golden and curling up a little at the edges. “Can’t stop that with all the icy water and ambulances in the world”  
_

_They both knew what it meant; summer was drawing to an end and the point where their ways parted was closing up on them.  
_

_“I could try” Mikey said and Pete let out a laugh that broke through the silence of only nature and no tents and busses and screaming people and soundchecks that usually reigned their days.  
_

_“That would be a lot of leaves to keep alive” he pointed out when he’d quieted down again, and Mikey nodded against his shoulder. They stayed quiet after that, spending the rest of the afternoon sitting close against each other in the tree, hiding from the world and everything that would come after summer._

 

Pete had told Mikey everything. Or, as much as he possibly had time for telling in one summer, when there also had to be made time for comfortable silences and Mikey telling as much as he could and falling asleep in each other’s arms and of course being rockstars too on top of everything. 

Pete had told Mikey about when he was a teenager, about bad trips and even worse sex, about proving himself to the soccer team and ending up with broken bones and only half the admiration he’d hoped for and about being a shitty bass player and playing anyways because he felt home on a stage and about meeting Patrick and being sure he’d found his platonic soulmate in him. And Mikey had listened closely to every word, and Pete felt closer to him for every one of them. 

And in exchange, Mikey had told him about asthma attacks and getting drunk with Gerard and being an outsider and always being the quiet one and skipping school to sneak into concerts and spending all his money on old posters and used records and how fucked up high school was, especially when Gerard was your older brother, and Pete had felt like he understood. 

He probably didn’t though, because him and Mikey weren’t even that alike when it came down to it, but it was like when they had first been thrown into each other’s lives, Pete had been torn down and rebuilt so he was shaped a little differently and more like a puzzle piece that fit next to Mikey. And then, when he and Mikey had been torn out of each other’s lives again, and was suddenly separated just as fast as they had first been attached by the hip, it was like no matter how many times Pete tore himself down, he couldn’t quite rebuild himself to fit in anywhere without Mikey next to him. 

And it was driving him crazy to a point where he wasn’t really functioning in any way anymore. He wasn’t with his band or with his wife or anyone who could remove focus from where his thoughts always seemed to wander when left alone for extended time. And he couldn’t help but wonder if he had made the worst decision of his entire life, that day in September where he said goodbye to Mikey Way and promised to call him when they both got home. 

He had called, and Mikey had answered, but when they were thousands of miles apart and in each their time of their lives, the alternate universe that Warped Tour was left behind, the conversations were dry and not flowing as freely as they had done at five in the morning where Pete had learned that Mikey talked the most when everyone else slept and it was only Pete who was awake next to him to listen. And somewhere along the road the calls had died out completely, and it was so long since he had heard Mikeys voice that he could practically feel the longing crawling like spiders across his skin. He wasn’t the one Mikey talked to anymore.

_Anyone who laid their eyes on Pete and Mikey during the entire summer of 2005 would probably see Pete dragging Mikey somewhere, because every time they were out in public, that was what they were doing. Pete had a billion ideas and impulses and things he needed to try out, and he wanted Mikey to be a part of every single one of them.  
_

_Only, tonight there wasn’t anyone who looked at them, because everyone was back at the busses, celebrating with each other that it was the last night of a very successful tour. Pete and Mikey weren’t celebrating, they were walking, hand in hand as always, further and further away from the noise and their friends and bandmates and the beers and the party and the constant reminding that tomorrow morning they were going each their separate way.  
_

_Pete had sneaked one of the merch seller’s keys out of his pocket while he was taking shots with some guys from Kia Forte and so he and Mikey ended up sitting against the windshield of a rusty van behind some of the merch tents, doors wide open as a classic rock radio station played from the cars stereo and out across the empty festival.  
_

_Neither of them was saying anything, but Mikey had his arm around Petes shoulders and Pete felt so awfully small underneath the clear sky and with Mikeys tall figure crammed up around him, but it also felt safe when it was Mikey next to him, and he just wished they could sit here for the rest of their lives.  
_

_“Oh, I like this song” Mikey said when a well-known riff started sounding from the van as the songs changed and Pete looked up at him.  
_

_“Goo Goo Dolls” he stated as he recognized the intro to Iris and sat up straight. “May I have this dance?” he then said and held out his hand towards Mikey.  
_

_“What?” Mikey said and huffed out a laughing breath, staring at Petes fingers like he’d never seen anything like them before.  
_

_“Dance with me Mikeyway” Pete said and grinned as he pushed himself off the van and Mikey followed, slightly hesitant. When they were both on the ground next to the van, Pete put his arms around Mikeys neck and pulled him closer, and Mikey let his hands slide to Petes lower back, and Pete started swaying back and forth, slowly and a little awkward but it felt just right.  
_

_Halfway through the song Mikey started giggling, and as soon as Pete had looked up at his smiling face, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing either, and they held on close to each other as the song faded out and maybe Pete felt a little bit like crying and also like laughing but most of all he just felt like clinging onto Mikey and never let him go, because they were puzzle pieces and they fit together. Pete small and square into Mikeys crooked shape when he bowed down to kiss him, and it didn’t matter that their bands didn’t necessarily approve entirely of whatever had been going on this summer out of pure concern for the both of them, because Mikey calmed Pete down when he was angry or sad or restless or dumb, and he could make Pete fall into a state of complete calmness if he was just there with him, and when Mikey felt small and invisible and unimportant because he was quiet and his brother was dramatic and Frank was a human tornado and Ray was walking talent and he just stood in the back without saying anything, Pete was there to remind him that no matter how many people they were among, Mikey would always catch his eye immediately.  
_

_And maybe Pete did cry, and maybe he also laughed a little, but he didn’t really pay attention to any of that, he just kissed Mikey deep and hard and tried to put everything he felt into the kiss. He probably didn’t succeed doing that, but Mikey did kiss him back, hungry and wanton and Pete let him push him back against the front of the van, and Mikeys warm hands found his skin and his belt and his zipper, all while his mouth never left Petes for more than a few seconds to breathe. And Pete was so, so in love._

 

Maybe he still was. In love, with Mikey. He wasn’t really sure what his interpretation of love was anymore, he just knew that he barely slept and when he did he dreamt about slender fingers and big whiskey-colored eyes with tints of green in them and pale, bony limbs and things he should’ve said but didn’t say and how it still pained him that he had lost Mikey Way. 

Because that was what he’d done. Lost him. He had panicked. Of course, first he’d let Mikey fuck him in the backseat, and it was weird angled and uncomfortable but it was Pete and it was Mikey and that was all it needed to be, and they had fallen asleep all up in each other’s space, half naked and sticky and feeling mostly like teenagers in love. Which they probably also were to some degree. Pete often forgot that they had actually both been grown up because it didn’t feel that way, that summer was blurry and warm in his mind like a lot of the memories he had from when he was 15 or 16 was. It was a nice way to keep those memories, like nothing could spoil them, maybe except for Petes shitty behavior that night.

_He had woken up in the middle of the night, it wasn’t exactly unusual behavior from his side, but he had started sleeping through whole nights when he was lying with Mikey, on his back with Mikeys head resting on his chest and arms entangled.  
_

_His heart had been racing and he started sweating and shifting, and it caused Mikey to wake up as well and glance up at him with wide, terrified eyes and a look in them that caused Petes heart to break into a million pieces.  
_

_“Is it already morning?” he asked with a voice that was hoarse, mostly from sleeping but Pete was sure it was from something else too.  
_

_“No, not yet” he said without really thinking about it. “But I have to go, I kinda need to pack and stuff, y’know”  
_

_He felt like he was going to suffocate. He needed to get outside. He needed to get away from Mikey, because if he spent another minute in his company, he might actually choke and die from all the things that were raging inside of him.  
_

_“Yea, I know” Mikey said and his voice was so small it made Pete want to yell at him out of pure powerlessness. “I probably won’t see you tomorrow. We head out early”  
_

_“Yea. I-“ Pete started but didn’t really know where he wanted to go with that. ’I love you’ maybe, or  ‘I want to stay with you forever because I am fairly certain you’re my soulmate and partner in crime and best friend and I can’t really comprehend a future without you there all the time’. But he didn’t say any of those things. Instead he sat up, accidentally pushing Mikey off him, maybe a little too harsh and said “I’ll see you, then, sometimes”  
_

_It was fucking mean of him, and he knew that, but he didn’t know what to say that would’ve made anything better, except ‘let me go with you instead of my band’ and it had been a silent, halfhearted agreement that that wasn’t an option. He wanted to say a lot of things, he wanted to tell Mikey how he was the only one who made Pete feel steady enough to have an almost regular sleeping schedule, how he was the only one who understood Petes love for really bad sugary Wal-Mart fruit cereal and how he was the only one who ever stayed up an entire night just to listen through Petes old tapes with shitty underground Chicago bands that no one had ever really heard of and how he was the only one who put up with Pete all the time he felt down, always, how it felt like he understood parts of Pete that he hadn’t shown to anyone before, and how he loved him so much it hurt to think about but he was too afraid to say it. Because he was so afraid all the time, and Mikey just got that too, and that was probably why instead of making a dramatic goodbye scene, Mikey just said “Yeah, I’ll see you Pete. Call me when you get home”  
_

_“I will. Goodbye Mikeyway” and he only just caught Mikeys faint goodbye before he was out of the van and heading back towards the busses where the party had quieted down completely and there wasn’t anyone awake to notice him out here. It wasn’t until he was halfway towards his own bus that his eyes started burning and he realized that it was over. Like, really over. And that he was the biggest asshole to ever walk planet earth._

 

He hadn’t cried much about it since then. He had just mostly felt bitter or not felt anything at all. And then there had been times where he had felt everything all at once and he had scribbled out desperate words because then it felt less like he was going to blow up. And they had turned into songs, that had turned into an album and sometimes Pete just stood back and listened to Patrick sing the words and then it felt like he understood them better, and they also felt better in his ears when someone else sang them and they were less helpless and furious and in love than they were when Petes head came up with them. 

Now, Patrick hadn’t sung his words in a long time, and things had been building up inside Pete because he had nowhere to get rid of anything, and he went out and poured himself another gin before heading back to the bed. On the way he grabbed his cellphone and stared at it in his hand with pure hatred for a while. He didn’t know what to do with it. In the end he just threw it against the far wall in the room and watched it as the screen broke and little parts fell off it. Fuck. 

He gulped down the rest of the gin and his eyes filled with tears again, like that night in the parking lot where his entire being had felt like sand between his fingers, slipping away incredibly fast as he headed further and further away from Mikey. 

Then he went and picked up his house phone. It didn’t have any contacts he could look through, but it didn’t matter either because he knew Mikeys cellphone number by memory due to all the nights at Warped that they had been on each their bus and texting away into dawn where Mikey would fall asleep and Pete would attempt it too. 

He wasn’t really aware of what he was doing, until suddenly his entire body froze as a well-known voice sounded from the other end of the line, older and tired and worn out, but none the less the same voice that he had sworn he could listen to forever some night many years ago. 

“Who is this?” Mikey asked, and Pete remembered that he had never called Mikey from his house phone before. 

“Uh, it’s, it’s Pete” he stuttered and pushed his eyes shut and tried to think clearly as Mikey went quiet. “I’m a giant asshole” he continued, and thought of those few times he’d talked to Mikey after Warped, where he had never once mentioned the way he left Mikey in the back of a strangers van, possibly as much in love as Pete had been. Still was. 

“It’s three in the morning” Mikey stated and Pete looked over at his watch that was placed on the bedside table. He hadn’t really any sense of time anymore. The days just went by now. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t, um, I didn’t know it was that late” he said earnestly and Mikey sighed. 

“I guess you didn’t”

“I missed your voice. I’m sorry, I’m just kind of miserable” Pete confessed and his voice was a little slurred and sharp at the edges and Mikeys voice was sober and grown up and far from Warped and yet it was still the closest Pete could ever get to that summer. 

“How miserable?” Mikey asked, and Pete immediately spotted the concern in his voice. 

“Not _that_ miserable, but, y’know, pretty shitty” he explained and Mikey went quiet again. 

“Huh” he just huffed a while later and Pete couldn’t really figure anything about Mikey out right now. 

“I’m so sorry, Mikey. I’m so, so sorry and I did shitty things and I do shitty things and I can’t help it and then I feel shitty afterwards but I’m too scared to stand up and face the consequences and now I’ve felt shitty for six years and I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m still scared to death” Pete suddenly found himself rambling and slightly out of breath. It was like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. “I miss you” 

“Pete, I-“ Mikey started but cut himself off. “You-“ 

“There were so many things I should’ve said and done and I just fucked off like the coward I am but I’ve been thinking a whole fucking lot lately and I’ve found that I kinda still wanna say all those things though it’s kinda late” Pete continued before Mikey could say something dismissive, because that was probably what Pete was mostly scared of would happen. 

“Kinda late is possibly the understatement of the century” Mikey said, but he didn’t sound as reluctant as he did five minutes ago and it sparked something inside Petes chest. He recognized it as some sort of fiery hope that he hadn’t felt for six long years and it was so overwhelming that he forgot to speak for a minute.

“Pete, you still there?” Mikey asked and it was so reassuring to hear Mikey say his name. 

“Yeah. Yea, I’m here” Pete said and found himself clenching his free hand around the front of his shirt. 

“I kinda miss you too” Mikey then said and his words were like a punch to Petes guts that sucked all the air out of him, but in a very, very pleasant way. 

“You do?” he asked hopefully, as if to make sure that Mikey wasn’t just kidding him and really hated his guts like Pete sort of expected from him.

“Yea. I know you. You do act shitty sometimes. You also act non-shitty most of the time though. I miss non-shitty you” Mikey explained and Pete found himself smiling into the phone. 

“I’m really shitty right now” 

“Not that kind of shitty” Mikey said and Pete was almost sure he was smiling too now. “I hope not, at least”

“No, not that kind of shitty. If I was I wouldn’t be calling” 

“Maybe I’m glad you called” 

“I’m glad I called too” Pete said and they kept silent for a while. It was Mikey who broke the silence the next time. 

“I kinda need to go back to sleep though. I’ve got stuff to do in the morning, and I also need to process all of this. You. But y’know, I can call you in the morning” he suggested and Pete smiled wider, because there was two types of ‘I’ll call you’. The one that Pete had given Mikey on the last night of Warped that was shitty and didn’t really mean anything, and then there was this one, the one that sounded real. 

“You can definitely call me in the morning” Pete agreed and after a short goodbye, he was alone with his thoughts again, but they were lighter now, and so was whatever that felt like it had been weighing down on his chest. He had apologized to Mikey and said at least some of the things he hadn’t dared before in his life. So even if Mikey decided that Pete was an asshole after all and didn’t call back in the morning, Pete would know that he had at least tried to make up for some of the horrible mistakes shitty-him had made. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is angsty and i was tired when i wrote it and yea, 
> 
> but its kind of inspired by Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls and you should go listen to it


End file.
